We could be in trouble every night
by Veranda
Summary: "I thought we weren't doing this anymore," Steve said when they broke apart, perfectly aloof, but he may as well have dropped the act, because Tony had a finger on his racing pulse. Steve/Tony. Microfic. Five interconnected scenes.


We could be in trouble every night

1.

Tony wasn't sure what was happening just over his shoulder in the doorway of the 75th floor entertainment lounge but judging by the expressions on the faces of his teammates it was going to ruin movie night. It was with this in mind that Tony let his eyes fall closed, enjoyed one last moment of calm, and turned around.

And, yep. That was a whole lot of blood.

"Fucking _Christ_," Tony yelped, and bolted up off the couch.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Steve said automatically.

"Not as bad as it—_could you get off the carpet please? _Dammit, Steve, just…" Tony stalked across the room, making shooing motions.

"Calm down," Steve said, and backed onto the linoleum, into the large communal kitchen, leaving bloody footprints all over the goddamn floor.

"How much of this is yours?"

"How much of what?" Steve said, trying to peer past Tony into the lounge. "Hey, what movie are you guys watching?"

Tony paused in frantically patting Steve down and stared. "Are you kidding?"

"No?"

"_Steve_. _What's with all the blood._"

Steve blinked. "Oh, it's not mine."

"You boys okay in there?" Jan called brightly into the long silence.

Steve stripped off one red leather glove and hooked a finger in his collar to tug at the gore-soaked scale mail. He shot Tony a sly look and grinned, teeth startlingly white against the insides of whatever poor monster had crossed Captain America. "You know," he said, "this thing's kind-of a bitch to get out of when it's—"

"Fuck off," Tony said, laughing, and turned on his heel.

2.

"Fear not!" Thor boomed from somewhere up ahead. "Storms such as this are not uncommon in Jotunheim."

Steve turned to grin at Tony from inside the fur-lined hood of his parka, a fine mist of snow caught up in his pale eyelashes.

Tony huffed out a laugh and wiggled his fingers in the suit until the layer of ice jamming his joints shattered and fell away.

He kept his eyes on Cap's shield as he walked, that solitary splash of color bobbing just ahead of him in the whiteout, and his mind wandered back to the crash site in the Arctic, that shield, Jan hovering too close to his ear. He'd reached out to brush away the accumulation of frost on the smooth plane of ice—

"Prepare yourselves!" Thor said bracingly, jolting Tony back to the present. "The cave of the foul beast is just over this rise!"

"What?" Tony said, pulling up short.

Steve unstrapped his shield and slipped it onto his right forearm, rolling his shoulder in a wide, sharp arc to test the fit as Thor unslung Mjolnir, kicking up a small, concentrated whirlwind. The center of the funnel crackled with lightning.

"Wait, I'm sorry, _what?_" Tony said with more urgency, waving his arms. "I thought we were looking for shelter because of this…really bad storm?"

"There is shelter in the lair of that creature," Thor said, and charged off in the direction of the sound, shouting back to them, _"If it can be persuaded to part with it!"_

For an instant, the eddies and whorls of snow stood out in perfect clarity, sharply lit by a blinding column of lightning, and Steve just stared it down, something dangerous in his eyes.

"Seriously, why am I the only one of us who can't pass a psych eval?" Tony said.

Steve _laughed._

3.

"Cheers," Carol said, raising her glass, and Tony knocked their tumblers of club soda together with a quirk of his lips as she fell in beside him on the edge of the dance floor.

The song was ending, and the sea of dancers dissolved into a jumble of sequins and suits. Tony pitched his voice over the swell in conversation. "Aren't you flying getaway for Cap on Hydra Island?"

"No, the mission was a bust. I'm pretty sure this is our punishment," she said with a sweeping gesture, encompassing the whole of the gala. "He's here somewhere."

Tony scanned the room, and sure enough, Steve was laughing and handing his glass to Hawkeye as Jan pulled him onto the dance floor by his tie. He caught Jan's hand and spun her gently, leading her into a waltz with consummate grace, everything one long endless movement.

"You feel like dancing?" Carol said suddenly.

"Sure," Tony said, distracted, looking for somewhere to abandon his drink.

"No, look," Carol said, and Tony turned to find Captain Marvel coiled behind him, one arm thrown wide between him and the horde of Hydra Agents pouring in from the mezzanine.

"Oh," Tony said, and at his wordless suggestion the gold under armor crept up from his feet.

The Wasp shot by, wings buzzing, kicking up enough wind to make Carol's hair lift, like a gasp, and fall against her shoulders. At the center of the chaos, under Tony's heavy gaze, Steve settled his shield on his arm, the barest hint of a smile playing on his lips, and then he was off and running, smoothly vaulting the catering table one-handed, his black jacket filling with air and expanding outward like a cape.

4.

Tony pushed his chair back from the wall of readouts and let the wheels carry him halfway across the room, rolling to a halt in the orbit of the Mark IV. "Hey," he said, staring up at the impassive gold face, but ol' shell head opted not to respond, so Tony slouched up to the kitchen.

The sun was looming just beyond the edge of the world, and the city stretched on forever, a smudged grey thing made up of right angles. Steve was at the table, his back to the door, both hands wrapped around a mug. The Times sat in a loose stack on the chair next to him.

"Hey," Tony said, and went for the coffee.

Steve moved the newspaper. "Hey."

Tony walked around behind him and fell into the chair, stretching out his long legs with a sigh.

"When did you get back?"

"Couple hours ago," Steve said, and then gestured vaguely at the window, "This time of day, it's like nothing's changed."

When Tony didn't say anything, Steve smiled at him sideways, cheerful in that way of the terribly sad, and how could they have thought that pulling Captain America out of the ice was anything resembling a rescue.

Tony set down his coffee and crossed to an access panel next to the panoramic view of Manhattan. He lit up the windows with a digital news display, blotting out the view of the city, bathing the kitchen in a riot of blue light. It was a flood of data, impossible to process, a tacky hallmark of the rapidly changing world.

Steve grabbed his coffee cup, looking annoyed, and headed for the kitchen, but Tony caught his hand on the way by, taking the mug and setting it on the counter before he pulled him down, careful, and kissed him.

"I thought we weren't doing this anymore," Steve said when they broke apart, perfectly aloof, but he may as well have dropped the act, because Tony had a finger on his racing pulse.

5.

The last slab of concrete came up in a shower of debris and Tony threw it off to the side with a grunt, going roughly to his knees to clear away the rubble. Steve was eerily still, curled half under his shield, and he'd stopped responding forty minutes ago, but his heartbeat was just there in front of Tony's eyes, glacially slow, a long unbroken line with the occasional sluggish peak.

"Cap," he said, and winced at the modulated, impersonal sound. He lifted his helmet fully off, setting it aside, and reached out to brush away the accumulation of grit on the smooth plane of vibranium. The dust was making his eyes water. He lifted the shield gently away. "Steve."

He came awake gasping, and Tony shucked the gauntlets, pushed back the torn cowl, got his hands on Steve's face. "Hey hey, okay. Calm down."

Steve pushed himself up on one arm, and Tony waited, hands splayed on the scale mail, taking most of his weight as he coughed like he'd shake apart. Once it passed he sat back heavily, blinking up at Tony. His pale eyelashes were caked with grime.

"What year is it?" he said, his voice like gravel, and ventured a smile, pushing his hair back from where it had fallen across his forehead.

"God damn it," Tony said, all of the air going out of him, and he sat down hard with an echoing metallic clank, pushing his head between his knees_. _"Oh my God."

He wanted to shove the helmet back on and stare at the digital readout, the steady peaks and valleys, the fact of Captain America's beating heart, but then he didn't have to because Steve rested a hand on his metal-encased foot and Tony felt the fine tremor running through it, or through himself, there in the wreckage, just shy of the ruin of everything.


End file.
